Today was the first Canada Day since my grandmother died. Her birthday was July 1, so my mom always threw a Canada Day barbeque/birthday/pool party. It made my grandmother happy. Some years were good; others boring. I enjoyed being at concerts (as a teen) and StanFest (as a young married) instead of going. One more afternoon of small talk and potato salad, with a sheet cake at the end of it. Usually by the time that everybody was ready for fireworks, I was more than ready for some alone time.

This year I went to the party without my husband, without my boyfriend, without the birthday girl. It was pretty good, but every once in awhile I would look at the maple leaves and hit a pocket of sadness. The worst part was the birthday cake, which my grandfather brought. After we sang and all blew it out, I looked up to see him crying.

This spring has been a hard one for my garden. Flowers are late in appearing, seeds are hesitant to germinate. I have two rose bushes in my front garden that my grandmother planted, one on either side of the path going to my door. I've been cheering on the yellow bush, as it was choked in morning glories last year and never bloomed, and it's been doing well. Last week I noticed that my other bush seemed to be blooming in two colours. Mason figured out that it was two bushes, and it was only this week that I realized that my grandmother planted a modern bush next to an old bush, and the old bush has just now come back.

It's funny. I didn't think it was going to hit me hard. I thought her influence on me was minimal. I think I'm coping well. And then I see a rose, and I know by colour and shape that it isn't one my grandmother would buy. I look at a cheap Canada Day flag and get a knot in my chest. I wish for cabbage rolls in the dead of winter. I miss her, and I never thought I would.

Labels: death, family

I'm finding it incredibly hard to focus this week. Good thing all of my real work is done, and I only have to worry about cleaning up and throwing away. I blame the light - when the sun doesn't set until after 9, it's hard to go to bed. Blake hasn't been sleeping well either, and we're all cranky in the morning. I can't wait until I can adjust everyone's wakeup time to "whenever the hell".

Blake graduated from kindergarten yesterday. As a professional cynic and misanthrope, I should be suspicious of such celebrations of non-events...but I have to say, it was awesome. The whole class participated, including the kids who would be staying in the class for another year (kids currently in what we used to call Junior Kindergarten). Blake has been practicing his songs all week, in between singing random Apostle of Hustle hooks. I've decided that it doesn't get any better than little kid performance art, especially when your child is cast as the Doctor in "Five Little Monkeys." I had no idea he was in pre-med!

Pictures to come, as soon as my camera/computer stop ignoring each other. I love my cam, but honestly...the little point and shoot was way less aggro than this little prima donna. I've got a slide show to produce! I've got downloads of "Pomp & Circumstance" to employ! Gimme my damn pictures, technology.

- medium large

The other cool thing about yesterday was that I started a new session of ATS with Valizan. It's still a fuck of a long way away for a dance class, but at least I get to drive in the daylight instead of hurling through the cold & snow & utter darkness of downtown Oakville. Also, Keeral and Jessamyn are taking the course, so I'm already having fun. I knew about Jess, but Keeral was a fun surprise. Soon my troupe will, once again, comprise more than half the class. We are herd.

This is the first proper dance class or, really, exercise session I've done since the Troubles this spring (yoga doesn't count). Hopefully this will do something to combat both my incredible lethargy and my passionate love for high quality cheeses and beer. At the very least, I can feel my shimmy coming back. I'd missed it.

Labels: bat masterson, blake

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Label

My fandom for the BSS family/Arts & Crafts stable is becoming something of an in-joke among my non-afflicted friends. They no longer comment on how many times Mason or I will wear a band shirt instead of a real shirt, or that my living room art is band posters (which will change soon thanks to a wicked linen Book of Kells dishtowel I picked up last Saturday at the Brickworks. Looks so good with my old, clunky, dark, hand-me-down 70's furniture! But I digress.), or that I have a calendar in my study that I made for Mason's Christmas present that features band pictures for each month (June is K Drew). Although the "golden age" of the scene has long-since passed, this is still a good time to be a fan. Fandom has encouraged us to sample solo projects and enjoy a wide range of musical offerings from related bands like the Happiness Project or Apostle of Hustle. It's like going to a year-long music festival where every act is different and good but I get to use my own toilet.

Being older fans (as these things go) we also tend to take some things for granted. We're used to showing up at these things and being blessed beyond measure: not only really liking the performance but taking home a balloon or dancing with the band. So when we bought 5-day passes for NXNE to get into the launch party for This Book Is Broken, we expected to get into the launch party. We also expected all kinds of little bonuses. After all, we are the ones who show up to knit night at Lettuce and walk into book launches a half-dozen times a year. We come to craft and get free cupcakes and wine, or sushi and beer, or yarn door-prizes and lemon squares.

This is not the world in which I toiled when I was a teenager: bands were remote and suicidal, not mixing in the crowd. Authors sat in state at the end of 2-3 hour line-ups; you skipped school to spend the day at the World's Biggest Bookstore, dodged your grandparents who were there to get you a birthday present, and the author would graciously spend almost 4 words on your overwhelmed carcass. Free cupcakes were exclusively the province of birthday parties for younger siblings. Wine was gross. Free yarn was useless.

Like I said, Mason and I have been extraordinarily blessed, first to have so much access to art and then to have all of the unexpected access to the artists. It's a lovely thing to have given up on new music for almost 10 years, only to be so undeservedly rewarded when we plunged back into the fray. And we fully expected that when we pulled into Terroni's at 6:30 for a much-needed dinner after two-hours of terrible rainy driving, and saw at least four members of BSS at the front table, that we would be seeing them later that night. We had to give up on the free Apostle of Hustle show at MTV, due to a late doctor's appointment and the rain that made all the drivers angry and slow. But we were psyched to see everyone that night. It was going to be like the old days, the early days when all the family played together, one band bleeding into another.

Need I tell you that it didn't happen? That by the time we got out of the restaurant, the people in charge were no longer letting in 5-day pass holders?

Well. It didn't. We were left standing in the drizzle, our hopes of seeing the bands evaporating like our body heat. To make it even better, the woman in charge of telling us to go away whispered that the special secret guest was, in fact, Broken Social Scene. Mason was livid; so angry he couldn't talk. I felt like I had been punched. It had been so cold and rainy and such a crappy night to come down. My dinner had been expensive and disappointing. We had bought the 5-day passes just to see the acts that night. It was overwhelmingly disappointing. We went home and I spent the night in a freaked out state of anxiety; every time I woke up (which was every hour) I looked at the clock and told myself which band I was missing. I couldn't stop the Apostle song playing on an infinite loop in my head, gnawing at me when I tried to relax. I was certain that we were missing the best night ever, an unexpected return to an earlier time when everybody played all night and the final set blew everyone away.

We over-reacted. I see that now.

The next day, my disappointment had translated into anger. I got onto the message boards and vented. I made liberal use of swears. Then I tried to mark exams. The day passed: I would mark for an hour, then get up and checked the boards. If I'd had any sense, I would have avoided the new information and tried to calm down. But I didn't. I found out that not only had the special secret guest been BSS, but Feist had come out to play as well. Beautiful. I went back to marking. I listened to a band that wasn't in the family. I marked. And I made plans to show up again for the second night.

I decided that we had over-reacted, and that our disappointment was way, way out of proportion. I decided to redeem the purchase of a festival pass by seeing the new bands. Maybe I'd have a good time. I'd be going alone, as Mason had cut off his band the night before (at the same time as declaring his fervent desire to avoid BSS, Arts & Crafts or indeed, music itself, forever). That didn't necessarily bother me; I could knit through the boring and go home when I got tired. Being alone doesn't faze me, although this would be the first time I had been alone at a concert. Besides, maybe the other secret special guest would be cool. There were a lot of bands I liked on the label who didn't show up on Wednesday. Maybe I'd see one.

Mason came home, and though not happy, he didn't have much to say about me going out without him. He had, after all, decided never to like music ever again. I continued to putter around until I got an email from Remedios, the head of the record label. He had seen my vitriolic posts and offered to put me on the guest list with a +1, an overwhelmingly generous offer. I was both ashamed of my anger and sort of glad that I had complained so brattily. The entitlement train continues to roll, and I'm not 100% sure if that's a good thing. But it was enough to get Mason reconciled to the previous night's disappointment, and it was enough to return our band/label crush to previous levels. It was another unexpected blessing, another undeserved moment of grace. I just wish I didn't feel that our temper tantrums sullied the whole exercise. It's embarrassing to be shown up as less deserving, less faithful than we'd always assumed we were.

We went for a cheap, satisfying dinner at Burrito Boys, and then to C'est What for a beer so that Mason could wait for the line to build up. Someone was excited about front of line privileges. Turns out that there was no line. We were happy anyway. We bought some hard-to-find BSS vinyl and stowed it until later, then walked in and listened to Zeus. The Courthouse is a tiny, tiny venue and I can see why it filled up so fast the night before. The place was about half-full and we could still barely see Zeus through the press of bodies. We could see their mustaches, however. And we could hear, "That's All," their swampy, dirty Genesis cover, which turned a guilty pleasure into something one could blast from the car with pride. As they played, K Drew came in and greeted the people next to us. I tried to be cool and not eavesdrop. Stupid band crush! I'm too old for this crap!

Timber Timbre is a quiet, experimental act that was hard to hear over the chattery venue. It was a no-win situation for us: if we were close enough to hear, we would be jammed in with a hundred strangers and still unable to see the band because they were all sitting down; if we stayed in the back, we couldn't hear anything over people talking loudly to their neighbours. Eventually, Kevin came down to shush the crowd. They looked at him bovinely, then swung around and resumed talking at high volume. I felt my dormant work skills twitch, so I went over and offered to help. "I'm a highschool teacher. I can get them to be quiet."

He grinned. "No. They'll hate you. They already hate me."

"I'm a highschool teacher," I repeated. "I'm used to being hated."

I walked back to Mason. "What were you guys talking about?"

"I offered my skills to shut these guys up, but it didn't work out. And he gave my arm a scrunchy pat."

"Really?!"

Band crush, you run my life. So much for never listening to music ever again.

Kevin made a reappearance to introduce Still Life Still, the buzz band of the scene, and to chuck cameras at us so we could record it all. I got hit in the arm while shielding my (better) camera and didn't care. It was an indie rock wedding, and we were all invited to send them off. And, despite the fact that the band could have been writing exams for me this week and their fans were even younger, it was the most fun I've had in weeks. Bouncy, loud, fun rock, from kids who weren't all old enough to drink at the bar. We felt both ancient and elated.

We left after this, stopping outside to buttonhole Remedios and thank him for the passes. He was devilishly charming, and I felt even more remorseful for our ranting of the night before. He renewed our faith in the label, in the system, in the whole concert-going exercise. It was undeserved, but then all of our blessings are equally so.

"I was with a radio guy from Calgary, and I guess you're supposed to suck up to them? But I had to say, 'dude! Shut the fuck up! They're playing!'"
- remedios commiserating on the difficulties of hearing timber timbre.

Labels: mason, music, outings

As the truly long-time readers will have noticed, Sunday marked my twelfth anniversary of keeping this journal online. Twelve years and no domain to call my own! To celebrate, I uploaded a funkload of pictures, correlating to the appropriate entry. Yesterday I made the first setting change since I added Blogger comments, which is that I disallowed anonymous posting. I've been noticing that when people want to tell me that Mason is creepy, they do so anonymously. Feel free to judge our attractiveness, just tag on a name from now on. Also, have you noticed how fat I'm getting lately? Discuss.

To address an (anonymous) comment from the last entry: yes, I am surprised that the Boy has served the papers. His only action thus far has been to leave; I've been cleaning up the legalities ever since and have been paying the bills of nearly 3 grand. Perhaps in retrospect I should have expected that he would jump on the cheapest, easiest step…but I didn't. Be clear: I don't consider myself a victim here, but that doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge when things are done suddenly and without warning. It was a shock. Wondering why is not productive…although it may help to know that I dream of reconciliation 3 nights out of 5, and wake up feeling worse than ever. (Last night I dreamed of a Christian rockband that solved mysteries, so it's not always like that.)

A lost anecdote from Renfaire day:

On the way home, we discovered that Sage could "sing" "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," although it was a lot like listening to Frankenstein's monster & Tarzan sing holiday greetings. He skips words, syllables, lines…sometimes he'll produce 6 garbled sounds before awarding himself a flat "yaaaaaay."

It was far past his bedtime, and halfway through the long drive home he became incredibly tired and cranky. He started to produce the long, sustained crying that doesn't stop until a bed is produced…but if asked, he would still "sing". So we sang with him, over and over and over. Near the end of this litany, Blake turned to him and asked, in all seriousness, "Sage, do you know any other songs?"

Um. Stats? Of a sort.

• So. I suppose that, except for waiting for my heart to numb during brief custody hand-overs, I can reasonably claim that my relationship with the Boy is now completely over. That means that I get to add another milestone to the journal stats, which is that I have written of the birth, the flowering, the withering and the death of my marriage, all in one series. Yee haw.
• I have developed an interest in photography, and am starting to be able to (sometimes) produce the pictures I've visualized since I was a child.
• My child has gone from a surprise union of two cells to a fully literate boy who dresses like Spiderman, demands his own copies of Neil Gaiman books, and sings hooks from Apostle of Hustle songs in the other room while I'm making dinner.
• I have accepted my occasional nature, and stopped apologizing for it. To compensate, I make sure that my feed links are working, and I have Facebook trolling for notes as well.
• I have redeveloped a love of music not really present since my earliest journal years, and spend much more time at concerts and listening to new music than I would have thought possible five years ago.
• I have permanently lost touch with Poet (by his desire), Palaver is too sick to venture out much of the time and Preacher lives in another country. Of the three, I am closest with the one who lives farthest away, and our sons get along famously.
• I have added a third person to my monogamy series. The first is getting married sometime soon; the second will be divorced from me in about three weeks.
• I finally found a job I loved with friends, love, yarn, and mutual respect; these elements have disappeared or been co-opted so that I am more than ready to move on next year. And yet I can't imagine being anything but the World's Worst Teacher. (A label to which Blake strenuously objects, by the way. He thinks I should get it changed to World's Best. I already have the t-shirt, though.)

two years ago

five years ago

seven years ago

eight years ago

twelve years ago

Labels: achievement, angst, blake, comments, mason, music, nostalgia, on-line diaries, photos, the boy

Last night I had a plan. I would go home, get Blake ready for his weekend, and once he was safely dispatched I would run up to the bar near work, pick up Mason, and go to Drunken Knitting. This plan was fraught with small perils. First, that I had to go help do a dry run of DDR in the school caf to get ready for the Fun Fair on Monday. (Sigh. This – and telling 15 year olds who just consumed a box of Popeye's chicken in the 5 minutes it took to introduce today's lesson that I don't have napkins because I'm not a full-service eatery - is my life.) Second, that during the pick up, I would be seeing my mom for the first time since she bad-temperedly asked if I would be losing my job for co-habiting with Mason. Two days is a long time to build up invective, and I was spooked. Third, Blake's clothes were washed but not packed, leading to a frantic run-around that I've just about perfected at this point. Fourth, I had to ask for Blake an hour early on Sunday so I could help Jessamyn produce nudie photos (of her, natch.) But after that, I looked forward to smooth sailing all the way to a yarny harbour.

It was after I'd navigated all of these petty problems that the Boy pulled out a wad of papers to "serve me." The husband whose only decision in the past two years has been to leave half his crap behind has initiated a divorce. And just last week I was assuring Effie that he would never have the motivation to do this, as I was the one who had spent almost three thousand dollars on the separation agreement and mortgage re-titling. He was so passive that he didn't even get council for any of that. Ha ha ha, joke's on me.

So after I told my parents, called my lawyer, cried explosively for a few minutes, and ripped up one of his pictures while screaming invective, there was little left to do but go find a beer. Thank heaven for Drunken Knitting and my sympathetic ladies Soho, Mad Hattress and Needle Addict. Still, it would have been much better if I wasn't driving home. Then we'd truly see the meaning of the phrase "drunk and disorderly." (Usually when I drink we just see the meaning of "if she can't hold her liquor, you'll have to take her home sir." Sorry, Dav's wedding night.)

Last night and this morning I've been sleepily pondering the last thing the Boy said to me, a vague, "I'm sorry." The part of me that is truly the Queen of the Harpies is more than ready to compose a vicious list of all the things for which I am sorry, of which the mildest would have been, "that I assured you you were an adequate lover." But that's not really productive for either of us, and he wouldn't care anyway. I mean, that's why he moved out, right? So he didn't have to listen to my jive.

The following is a list of things for which I am truly sorry, not just because I'm mad.

• I'm sorry that my beautiful son will never know the uncomplicated boredom of a stable marriage between his parents.
• I'm sorry that I painted the bedroom a washed-out blue because it was his favourite.
• I'm sorry that this breakup has made it impossible for me to truly believe that anyone will love me as long as I love them.
• I'm sorry that I bought him all those expensive toys, because I could have used that money for retail therapy (I already bought a limited edition Neil Gaiman poster, and was glad to be going to a place last night where I couldn't do too much damage with the credit card.)
• I'm sorry I spent so much time at my inlaws when being ignored by my husband and choked by dander and cigarette smoke to the point where I couldn't breathe.
• I'm sorry it took me so many years to figure out that I would never have another child as long as he was involved in the decision-making process.
• I'm sorry we lived in a shitty Etobicoke neighborhood, threatened and abused by our neighbours, so that we would be on the subway line for his university.
• I'm sorry I submitted to the pain of living with my parents after having Blake instead of insisting that he man up and get a decent job.
• I'm sorry he felt it necessary to deny that he ever loved me.
• I'm sorry this list was neither coherent, funny or insightful.

Labels: angst, the boy